You know that moment when someone says “She’s really let herself go” about a woman who stopped contouring her face for Saturday errands?
I’m watching this happen to women around me as we hit our late thirties. The whispers start when someone stops posting gym selfies. The side-eyes come when she wears the same outfit twice in one week. The concern kicks in when she declines another networking drinks invite.
Here’s what nobody tells you: what looks like giving up is actually the opposite. It’s the beginning of something most women don’t discover until this age. The radical act of choosing yourself over the performance you’ve been delivering since middle school.
I spent years in brand and media worlds where your face was your business card and your social calendar was your net worth. Now at 37, with a young kid who restructured my entire understanding of what matters, I see these “letting go” moments differently. They’re not defeats. They’re the first signs someone finally understands the game well enough to stop playing it.
1. She stops apologizing for repeat outfits
Remember when wearing the same dress to two different events felt like social suicide? Somewhere around 37, that anxiety evaporates. Not because you stop caring about appearance, but because you realize the mental energy you spent tracking who saw you in what could power a small city.
I have a rotation now. Five good outfits that work. When someone jokes “Didn’t you wear that last week?” I say yes. The panic that used to follow that question? Gone.
The truth is repeat outfits signal confidence, not laziness. You’re saying: I found what works, I look good in it, and I’m not performing variety for your entertainment. The women who get this are usually the ones who’ve figured out that consistency beats daily reinvention. Every. Single. Time.
2. She stops doing her makeup for grocery runs
The full face for Target runs stops. Not because she’s given up, but because she’s finally internalized that strangers in the cereal aisle aren’t judging her worth based on whether she’s wearing mascara.
This isn’t about never wearing makeup. It’s about finally understanding the difference between choosing to enhance versus feeling obligated to perform femininity at all times. The woman who saves her energy for when it matters isn’t lazy. She’s strategic.
Every woman I know spent her twenties and early thirties terrified of missing out. By 37? The fear flips. You become terrified of burning out.
Having a kid accelerated this for me. Every yes to drinks means saying no to something else. Usually sleep. Or the mental space to actually be present with my family. The calculation becomes crystal clear: is this gathering worth the recovery time?
The friends who matter understand when you protect your energy. The ones who take it personally when you skip their third happy hour this month? They’re telling you something about how they value your presence versus your attendance.
4. She stops maintaining friendships that feel like jobs
You know those friendships where you’re always the one texting first? Where every interaction feels like you’re auditioning to stay in their life? Late thirties is when most women finally delete those numbers.
Not dramatically. Not with confrontation. Just a quiet recognition that friendship shouldn’t feel like unpaid labor. The women who “let these relationships go” aren’t antisocial. They’re just done subsidizing other people’s inability to reciprocate.
5. She quits posting life updates for validation
The Instagram stories slow down. The Facebook posts about every milestone stop. Not because life gets boring, but because seeking digital applause for living starts to feel weird.
I watched a friend document every moment of her vacation last year. By day three, she looked exhausted from curating her own experience. This year? She went to Greece and posted nothing. When I asked about it, she said “I was too busy actually being there.”
The shift from performing your life to living it looks like disappearing to people who measure existence through posts. What they don’t see is how much mental real estate you reclaim when you stop treating every moment like potential content.
6. She stops apologizing for her boundaries
“Sorry, but I can’t…” becomes “I can’t.” The sorry drops because you finally understand that boundaries aren’t attacks on other people. They’re just facts about your capacity.
Watch what happens when a woman stops cushioning her no with explanations. People call her cold. Difficult. Changed. What actually changed? She stopped treating her limits like something shameful that needs ten qualifiers to be acceptable.
7. She quits shapewear for everyday life
The Spanx for regular Tuesday meetings end up in the donation pile. Not because she’s “given up on her figure” but because spending eight hours barely breathing so her stomach looks flatter in a conference room full of people checking email is a stupid trade.
This isn’t about formal events where you choose to wear something fitted. It’s about the daily compression many women subject themselves to for the crime of having a human body. The woman who chooses breathing over artificial smoothness hasn’t lowered her standards. She’s raised them to include her own comfort.
8. She stops pretending to care about things she doesn’t
The performed interests drop. The fake enthusiasm for other people’s multi-level marketing schemes ends. The “Oh wow, tell me more!” about topics that bore her to tears stops coming.
This sounds small but it’s revolutionary. Women are trained from birth to be social lubricants, smoothing every interaction with manufactured interest. When you stop, people notice. They’ll call you less fun. Less engaged. What you actually are is less willing to donate your attention to maintain other people’s comfort.
Final thoughts
Here’s what I’ve learned at 37: The things that look like letting yourself go are actually the first signs of letting yourself be.
Every woman hits this point at different times. For some, it’s having kids that forces the priority shift. For others, it’s career burnout or health scares or just the accumulated exhaustion of performing for decades.
When you see a woman “letting herself go,” you might actually be watching someone finally understanding that the standards she’s been killing herself to meet were never hers to begin with. She’s not opting out of care. She’s opting out of performance.
The women who make these changes aren’t giving up. They’re growing up. They’re recognizing that the approval they’ve been chasing comes from people who won’t remember their name in five years. Meanwhile, they’ve been disappearing from their own life trying to be visible in everyone else’s.
So before you worry about that friend who stopped contouring for coffee runs, ask yourself: what would you do with all that time and energy if you stopped performing your life and started living it?
The answer might be the beginning of choosing yourself too.
